A/N: Yaoi415 gave me this idea. Thanks for letting me borrow it, love! Fuyu_no_akegata reviewed it for me and contributed a lot to the overall flow, as well as encouraged me to finish. Lyrics are from "Heavy in Your Arms" by Florence + the Machine, which she suggested after reading the first chapter. SasuNaru, roughly age 18.

Warnings: angst, death, love, smut, heartbreak.

This is already complete; there are four chapters. Expect daily updates through Sunday.

Heavy in Your Arms
part 1
by vernajast

sasuke x naruto x sasuke

(I was a heavy heart to carry; my beloved was weighed down.
My arms around his neck. My fingers laced a crown.
I was a heavy heart to carry; my feet dragged across the ground,
And he took me to the river where he slowly let me drown.)

"Sasuke..."

With the curtains drawn, Naruto's one-room apartment seems bigger.

"Wake up..."

His voice echoes softly against the blank walls. He barely recognizes it as his own.

Outside, the village itself has fallen into a sort of silent vigil broken only by the bay and snarl of the Inuzukas' dogs on the hunt and the tap-tap-tap of shinobi feet across the rooftops.

Naruto is barely aware of the disturbance outside.

At some point, Hatake Kakashi stops once to peer into his student's darkened apartment, but it is still and empty. It appears unlived-in, and for that, he is truly grateful. Naruto doesn't need to be here for this.

He hopes the boy will forgive them later, aware that he is really only stacking one false hope onto the back of another, but it can't be helped. This is a learned survival skill.

"Anything?" Anko lands lightly beside the worn-looking Hatake, who shakes his head once and disappears. The kunoichi's fists clench at her sides. "Damn. Uchiha...when I get my hands on that little jerk..." She growls through the last syllable, grudgingly shifting focus onto the mission directives and not what she plans to do when they apprehend the target.

She presses the mic positioned just below her jaw and mutters, "Tsume, Kiba, do another sweep," before backtracking to meet-up with her team. As far as she can tell, the tiny apartment is just another dead end.

Inside, Naruto shifts slightly, painfully aware of the awkward position they are lying in. "Wake up..."

An arc of blue chakra flares from his fingertips, and he smiles weakly at the way the light illuminates Sasuke's genteel features as it's absorbed into his body. "Heh...you can't sleep all day...da...tte..."

Despite his words, Naruto twists in Sasuke's arms and buries his face into his teammate's shoulder. "Okay, fine..." He coughs and draws in a sluggish breath. "Maybe just a little longer..."

Across the village, Shizune stands before the hokage, holding a clipboard and gnawing anxiously on the pencil she's clutching tightly. Tsunade is pacing back and forth behind her desk. Her narrowed eyes occasionally dart toward the window. When she pauses and levels that hawk-sharp gaze at Shizune, her protege tries to answer the unasked question brewing there: "Tsunade-sama, they're trying. It's just that—"

The younger woman jumps back with an embarrassing squeak as the hokage slams her fist against the desk. The wood groans, and a slow, yawning crack stutters across the surface. She raises her eyes to meet Shizune's, and Shizune is sure that she has only ever seen that look once before...when Jiraiya...when he...

"He's here. They aren't trying hard enough." Tsunade's voice is low and cool and too, too calm now. "Where is Naruto?"

"He... he hasn't returned from his mission." Shizune swallows and curses Jiraiya for not being here for them now. "Naruto-kun is nearly two weeks late."

Tsunade turns away from her student to face the broad window behind her desk. The entire village spreads out before her, and it is hers to protect. At all cost.

"Find him."

Ironically, Naruto is already home. He arrived one hour early, in fact, and he is currently resting. It is only his mission report that is two weeks overdue.

He whispers to the dark shadow beside him: "I missed you..." He's no longer sure if he's even saying the words out loud or just going through the motions. Phantom lips pantomime the shapes, but nothing passes through them. Sasuke's name perches on the tip of his tongue, a mantra to be repeated, a hope and a wish and a curse and a fear so deeply embedded in his soul that Naruto can no longer tell the difference.

"Don't ever leave me again..." His breath stutters. He brushes thin fingers through Sasuke's hair (his hand doesn't move), and then he tries to smile again (his mouth has forgotten how to make the shape of a smile, but there's no one there to tell him, like no one ever told him to give up, that some dreams aren't attainable, and that it is okay to admit defeat, like no one was ever there to tell him about love or family, so he never recognized either one until it was nearly too late...and then, it was gone).

"Sasuke..." The room is silent, cold, and if he could move, Naruto would pull a blanket over them, but he is just so... tired. Instead, he sighs softly into Sasuke's neck and presses his nose to the last Uchiha's slender jaw. "... lazy bastard..."

The faint red glow of demonic chakra rises and falls just beneath the surface of Naruto's skin, and his body greedily accepts the transfusion. It is a gift from the kyuubi that wreaks of self-preservation and (perhaps) begrudging sympathy (because it sees what is happening and knows that it is only a matter of time.)

[[TBC]]